I used my sharp claws to sever the strong, viscous bonds holding the girl, then carried her pale, near-weightless body down to the frozen ground. It was no easy work, wading up the steep incline with the snow flying in my eyes and the icy gusts constantly seeking to pry the limp body from my fingers. After nearly an hour I saw the jagged battlements of my fortress emerge from the squall like the skeletal remains of some ancient behemoth. I quickly crossed the dark courtyard, kicked the doors open and carried her inside my cold, empty castle. I climbed the south tower, which has always been the warmest, put her on the bed in one of the guest rooms and lit the fire. Then I gently undressed her and rubbed her chest, arms, neck and face with brandy, hoping that its warmth would thaw her back to life. I saw no signs of frostbite anywhere on her listless body. I cleaned the cuts and bruises, which were shallow and already healing. Her milky white skin was like delicate porcelain to the touch: smooth, but cold; hard, but brittle. Finally, after an hour of diligent work, her cheeks reddened, her eyes fluttered and I sensed her pulse quickening. I wrapped her in bear and wolf skins and moved the bed closer to the raging fire.
I waited. After another hour of staring, unblinking, at the arresting beauty of her face, my gaze began to wander around the vast circular room. Everything within it was covered with a thick layer of dust and was in an advanced state of disrepair. The walls were mouldy and the sideboards musty, and fat cobwebs hung from the ceiling like grey curtains. For the first time in centuries I felt shamefully conscious of the ruinous state of my ancestral home. It was as if the fair-haired maiden lying in my bed was a brilliant light, revealing the cruel truth of my surroundings—a pure white radiance against which all the jewels in the world would dim in compare.
Another uneventful hour passed before she stirred in her slumber. Her pallid countenance, so still and tranquil, began to ripple like the bright waters of a sun kissed river. Her exquisite eyelashes fluttered and her lips parted, revealing perfect white teeth, unaffected by age or decay. The movement of her breast hastened. I had to look away from her swanlike neck, for it was reddening and swelling with the blood of life.
As I stared at the wall and tried to ignore my stirring bloodlust, I heard a sharp intake of breath and when I turned, her pale blue eyes were fixed on me, wide with fear and surprise. I opened my mouth to speak, but when she saw my fangs, her eyes swelled with tears and her lips began to tremble. She was but a child; a helpless babe lost in the frozen wasteland! I moved to soothe her, but that only made her more afraid; she quivered like a dying leaf and fainted. That is how I left her for the night, sleeping by the roaring fire, her cheeks red with the heat, achingly beautiful in her serene abandon to shock and fatigue.
There was a small window outside her room and I stopped to admire the magnificent view. The tempest had subsided and the first golden rays of morning were climbing over the eastern peaks of the mountain, so that they shone like quicksilver. I could see the sky above them lightening. Praying that she would neither expire due to unseen injuries sustained in the crash nor leave the safety of the castle and perish in the harsh winter cold, I retreated to my coffin. Though I was exhausted, it took me the longest time to fall asleep. My mind constantly wandered back to the moment she had opened her eyes and looked upon me with such helplessness and horror. However hard I tried to think of something else, her angelic features would emerge from the darkness of sleep like a beacon of brilliant light, disturbing my languor and filling my head with doubts and unwanted thoughts.
At dusk I emerged from my coffin and immediately sought out my guest in the south tower. I found her wide awake and afraid, but she had not attempted to escape, perhaps because the terrible blizzard had started anew and fresh snow was blowing in earnest through the open window. She did not look as if she was in pain and the cuts and bruises had healed completely. The fire had died, and she was shivering from the cold. I quickly relit it, setting the damp wood aflame with my will.
Her eyes never left my face, not even for a moment, wide with dread and full of wonder. I approached the bed and this time she did not shrink from me, but her face became strangely blank and still. One of the wolf skins had fallen to the floor, so I picked it up and put it over her, then sat on the edge of the bed. After a while she stopped shivering and her teeth ceased to chatter.
“Who are you?” she asked in a surprisingly calm, quiet voice. She was local, judging by her accent. I noticed a heavy ring on the middle finger of her left hand: a gold serpent eating its own tail. I knew this Ancient Egyptian symbol very well—what the Greeks called the Ouroboros.
I surmised that she had judged me friend rather than foe, seeing as how I had taken care to keep her warm and snug under all those skins and firs.
“Who are you?” she repeated.
“I am… Dracula,” I said, staring at her in anticipation of her reaction.
Her eyes became even wider, but then she nodded, not as affected or surprised by the answer as I had expected. She continued with the same serene voice.
“Do you intend to kill me?”
I was impressed by her icy composure. Yes, there was a fearful tremble in her tone, but her stare never wavered. Perhaps she only looked innocent and helpless…
“The reverse, in fact. I saved your life.”
She frowned. “Where are my clothes?”
“I removed them. They were torn and soaking wet. They are over there, drying.”
I pointed to the chair upon which I had deposited her clothes, before moving it closer to the fireplace.
“What happened?” she asked.
Suddenly there was a sharp edge to her voice, out of place in one as young and frightened as she’d appeared. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth became a thin red line.
“Your carriage was attacked,” I replied. “You remember nothing?”
She shook her head. “No. Attacked by whom?”
I ignored the question. “Do you not even remember the blizzard?”
She looked out the window at the thick white curtain of snow and shivered. “No.”
“What about your family? Your father, your mother and brother?”
Suddenly her face darkened and her eyes filled with tears. I assumed they were tears of sadness, but I could not have been more mistaken.
“What about them?”
There was that hard edge to her voice again, harder still. Colour rushed to her cheeks and she blinked the tears away.
“Are they here?”
She looked around, as if expecting to see them in the room.
“You remember nothing of the crash?” I inquired, trying to keep my thirst at bay, looking away from her swanlike neck and the throbbing blue veins within it. I could smell the hot blood rushing around inside her body.
She frowned and shook her head. A golden curl fell to her delicate shoulder.
“Your family is dead,” I said.
For a long time she said nothing. She looked neither shaken nor sad. Her beautiful face was still, a mask. Finally her lips parted and she spoke.
“Did you kill them?”
“No. I came across the carriage by the side of the road. The horses were dead and there was blood. I found your family’s corpses in the woods, suspended in a giant spider’s web, spun in the branches of a tall tree. You were also caught in it, but you were still alive. I brought you here, in my home, to heal.”
She swallowed. “But you are a vampire. You feast on helpless maidens such as myself. Why did you spare me?”
At first I was taken aback by this bold question. Then I leaned forward and bared my teeth. “You wish I had not?”
To my utmost surprise she did not flinch at the sight, but narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips again.
“I do not know what I wish,” she said mournfully and looked away. She sighed, then wiped away a solitary tear with the back of her hand. “So you just left them there to rot?”
“Yes. They mean nothing to me. They will not rot; the cold will preserve them.”
She nodded. “I see.”
She shifted slightly under the covers and frowned.
“Are you in pain?” I asked.
“No,” she replied. “But I am freezing.”
“I shall bring you more wood for the fire,” I said. “But first I need to know what caused your carriage to crash. You say you do not remember?”
I thought I saw the shadow of a sly little smile appear for a moment on her lips. “I do not. Perhaps it was the blizzard.”
“Perhaps. Do you at least remember where you were heading?”
She shook her head. Her tears had dried; I was perplexed by how she was suddenly gazing at me—like a curious child examining an unexpected present.
“Your eyes are so red!” she said. “And you reek of the grave.”
“I am of the grave!” I retorted, irritated by her fearlessness. I was used to features distorted by terror, and hands clasped in desperate prayer. “Bred in darkness and despair. Dead and yet alive, living by taking life.”
“But you did not dare take mine.”
I was furious. “You suggest I was afraid to do so?”
She blinked. “I suggest nothing. But you did spare me, for some reason. What was it?”
“You demand answers from your gaoler? You shall get none!” I shouted. I stormed angrily from the room, locking and bolting the heavy oak door behind me.
I WANDERED AROUND the castle for over an hour, angry at myself for being angry, lost in uneasy thoughts, torn by indecision. Her question echoed around inside my head, her voice strangely cold and distant, like the whisperings of ghosts. Her calm had unnerved me. I had expected terror and resignation. I was used to them; even hungered for them, in a way. But I had encountered curiosity and quiet calculation instead. Even defiance. And that was the true reason for my sudden loss of temper: my cheated expectations. After I regained my composure, I returned to her room with fresh wood for the fire and some food, but when I unbolted and opened the door, I discovered the fire red hot and blazing and all the dust and cobwebs gone. But she was still in bed and looked as though she had not moved since I had left her. Outside, the storm was raging, but there was no snow gathered on the windowsill, even though the winds had picked up speed and were howling like hungry beasts. I know my castle very well and was mystified, since there ought to have been a great pile of fresh snow on the floor.
“What do you intend to do with me?” the girl asked, with the same eerily calm voice as before. She seemed to have grown even more beautiful in the intervening hours—as pale and exquisite as a Greek statue and just as motionless.
I put the tray down on the table by the window and threw the wood on the fire. “You must eat,” I said curtly, pointing at the roasted venison and sweet wine I had brought.
“I shall.”
She moved to get out from under the covers, then remembered her nakedness and blushed violently. “My garments…”
I stared at her burning face, savouring her profound embarrassment, for it was, at long last, a genuine and welcome sign of vulnerability. Then I bent over the chair where her clothes were laid out to dry, picked them up and threw them on the bed.
“You are angry?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.
I remained silent.
“How have I angered you?”
I looked away.
“Please, tell me.”
“Eat,” I said and left her, once again bolting the door behind me.
But this time I was unsure as to the reason—because I was afraid that she would escape, or because I was afraid that she would follow me and demand an answer.
I MUST ADMIT, my friend, that I was at a loss as to what to do with her. I was at odds with myself and, as you might expect, shocked by my own unbecoming and indecisiveness. I lusted after her sweet young blood, but I lusted even more after her sweet young body. One could not exist without the other, but I wanted both. Her willfulness and perfect beauty made me weak and flustered. Yes, my friend. Weak! I desired her for myself, but we could not have been more dissimilar. She was the embodiment of radiance and virtue, I was darkness and depravity personified. She was but an innocent child of nature, I was ancient and immortal.
Perhaps her strength mirrored my weakness. Perhaps she drew confidence and courage from my soft indecisiveness. Perhaps she had found a chink in my armour and was exploiting it out of expedience, afraid for her life. Whatever the case might have been, the next time I entered her bedroom—for I viewed it as hers already—she was fully dressed and sitting in the chair by the fire, immersed in a book she had acquired I knew not how, since I recognized it as one of my own. But the library doors were locked and bolted! The food lay cold and untouched on the table. She looked up when I entered and grinned. It was the first time I had seen her smile, but it was well worth the wait. It made her look older, and even more alluring.
“Why have you not eaten?” I inquired.
She lowered the book and stared at me. I could feel the heat from her gaze on my cold dead skin. My anger melted like ice left in the sun.
“I have,” was her answer. An obvious lie, issuing as sweetly as summer mead from her lips. I glanced at the book in her lap. It was one of my English books. A history of the city of London.
“How did you acquire this book? Have you left your quarters?”
“My cell, you mean.”
My temper flared anew. “You are not to leave this room without my permission!”
Unmoved by my wrath, she simply stood before me, with a quizzical, almost superior expression on her face.
“Your eyes grow even redder when you are angry,” she announced.
“Did you leave this room while I was away?”
“I did not.”
She was used to lying; her voice did not so much as tremble as she uttered this bold untruth.
“So where did you find the book? I recognize it as one of my own. You must have taken it from the library downstairs!”
“No. I found it here on the table.”
I moved closer. “You lie!” I hissed.
Her face grew very still. She did not shrink from me, but rather held her head high, stuck out her chest and said:
“I do not.”
This time there was a flutter in her voice, but it was not a flutter of fear, but of anger. My perfectly reasonable accusation had offended her.
“How could I have left this room through the door you locked and bolted yourself?” she snapped. “I cannot pass through walls.”
Her cold, hostile voice quickly cooled my anger. For the longest time we stared unblinkingly at one another, locked in a speechless, furious battle of wills. There was something of the serpent about her perfect stillness.
“Perhaps I left it here by mistake…” I muttered feebly. A craven admission, utterly unbecoming one as strong-willed as myself. She, in contrast, seemed uncharacteristically rigid and unyielding. Her penetrating, accusing gaze made me uneasy. I felt like a hunter caught in his own trap. Who was holding whom captive here? Who was questioning whom? “Did you perchance remember something more about the accident, and what might have caused it?” I continued.
She saw her chance and went on the offensive.
“No. You claim my equipage went off the road and my family was carried away and murdered by some strange creature of the night. I do not believe it, for I recall nothing of that nature. I do not believe you. However, I remember you bending over me with glowing red eyes and bared teeth. Are you not a creature of the night yourself? Have you not a reputation as a merciless murderer of innocent families? A reputation well deserved, as far as the people of my village are concerned.”
Every single utterance of the word ‘you’ was like a sharp blade, hurled at me in spite. And they had all hit their mark.
“My reputation is indeed well deserved, as you will soon discover to your sorrow!” I growled and stormed out of her bedroom for the second and final time, not only bolting the door, but barricading it with a chair wedged under the d
oor knob.
I spent the remainder of the night brooding over our tumultuous conversation, going over her responses in my mind, pacing up and down my empty halls, and all the while feeling her incandescence in the room above my head like a raging fire. There was indeed a fire—not in the south tower guestroom, but in my head, consuming my thoughts and turning my resolve into ash.
When I awoke the following evening, it was with a lighter heart than before, for I had made a decision in my sleep. I have always found that the wisest decisions are those made while the brain rests. Only in sleep, when that organ’s mighty gaze is turned inward and undistracted by the outside world, is the brain truly free to think. So when I pushed open the heavy lid of my coffin, it was with a steady purpose, for I already knew what I had to do. I had decided to get rid of the girl and her uncanny influence over me once and for all! I intended to kill her by drinking her sweet blood and draining her body of life. I had little choice! I could either extinguish her radiant light or suffer to be incinerated in it. Her inexplicable power over me grew and grew, hour by hour, and I knew that it would eventually consume me, body and soul. Every time I looked upon her, I sank lower and lower beneath her feet, stupefied by her beguiling beauty. Every word she uttered was a poisonous missile aimed at my heart. The wounds she inflicted would suppurate, and the rot would spread, turning my free will into dust. She meant to make me her slave!
I, who have always been a master of men, subjugated by a simple village girl a hundred times younger! I, who have slain men uncountable and led armies undefeatable, subdued by a weak and feeble woman, wounded in a crash and half-frozen in a blizzard!
Dracula Page 18
